


Safe Harbor

by Ink_Gypsy



Category: LOTR RPS
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-28
Updated: 2010-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-07 14:56:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ink_Gypsy/pseuds/Ink_Gypsy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the pressures of filming get to be too much for Elijah, Sean is always there for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe Harbor

**Author's Note:**

> This is the companion piece to _Just Elijah_.

His professionalism prevents him from letting anyone see him at less than his best. No matter how tired he is, how cranky, how close to the edge, no one can tell. He's that good at hiding what he's really feeling from everyone. Everyone but me.

For months I've watched him try to perform the Herculean task he's undertaken. Seen him deal with the heavy burden he's carrying on his narrow shoulders. We've all heard the party line. How there's no one star. That it's an ensemble cast. But those of us who've been here from the beginning know damn well that the success or failure of the films, at least the first one, will depend mostly on him. It would be a formidable task for even a mature actor, but for an eighteen year-old it seems nearly impossible. And yet he's doing everything he can not to let everyone down. He's trying his best, but I know he doesn't think it's enough. And the pressure he's under is taking its toll on him.

When PJ is finally satisfied after the exhausting 25th take of an intensely emotional scene, I watch Elijah sink down onto the floor like a marionette whose strings have been cut. He mugs for the crew, letting all onlookers know that he's just fooling around, but as soon as everyone is gone, he lets out a low moan and begins to sob, pulling his knees up against his chest and hugging himself. He doesn't realize I'm there at first, but when he sees me step out of the shadows, he raises his tear-stained face to me and lifts his arms like a child wanting to be picked up. I pull him to his feet and crush him against my chest. He clings to me like he's drowning and I'm a life preserver he's just snatched out of the water.

I'm his safe harbor, have been since we first met, a perfectly ordinary moment in time that will be forever etched in my memory as the day a bundle of energy, barely-contained in the form of a slight, beautiful boy, vaulted uninvited into my arms, and promptly took up residence in my heart.


End file.
